Upsie Downsie Upsie Downsie Revisited

Monday through Wednesday started okay but brought some unpleasant surprises including 2 night-time excursions to the emergency room, followed by a relieving clearing-out. My 28-year-old son Raymi arrived -- a gift. It might take two posts to write about everything. I might have reacted worse to Nadine's rough time because her stellar week-end may have lulled me into false expectations of continued smooth "sailing".

Monday July 13th was Nadine's "clinic day" at the hospital. We arrived early for Nadine's blood-drawing, then went up the "silver" set of hospital elevators to the clinic. Nadine was seeing Dr. Mullen, the head of the department, as her own doctor, Dr. Bruckner, was on inpatient duty.

Nadine was looking tired, peaked, and pale, reminding me of how she looked before she was diagnosed. Dr. Mullen ordered a transfusion of 2 units of red blood cells for the next day -- this wasn't unusual. It's strange how I no longer consider a transfusion of red blood cells (or anything else) unusual. A different world.

The nurse, Laurel, was going to change the dressing on Nadine's wound from the port removal. She suggested that I change the dressing with her watching me. I got training in using sterile gloves, very cumbersome -- I've seen nurses do it with ease, and probably once I learn it, it can be like riding the proverbial bicycle. It didn't have to be perfect for this procedure -- it was mainly practice in case I need to do a sterile procedure later on. To change the dressing, I removed the Allevyn bandage, pulled out the squishy Aquacel dressing from her about-two-inch-long bowl-shaped chest wound left after her port was removed (it needs to heal from the inside out), saw (along with the nurse) that it looked like it was healing, drew up saline into a syringe and released a generous amount of saline into the wound, and swabbed it out with sterile gauze. I cut a half-inch-wide spiral piece (maybe 8 inches long) out of the rectangular piece of Aquacel, stuffed it into the wound, swabbed the area around it with adhesive prep liquid (she likes the feel of this), peeled off the backing of the waterproof Allevyn bandage, put it on carefully to avoid "bubbles" around the edge, and I was done and proud of myself. The end.

Although Nadine was tired, she wanted a hat that wasn't as conspicuous as her pink fleece one, so we stopped on Monroe Avenue and she picked out a nice one in reversible tan and blue denim; then I got groceries and we went back to the Klassen household. Betty Wayman had invited us to go to a concert at Kilbourn Hall near Eastman that night, and had offered to pick us up -- I was looking forward to going.

I checked my phone messages. My 28-year-old son Raymi had called. He had just moved to Pittsburgh. The moving truck had arrived with his things -- he wanted to drive up and see us that very night!! I was shocked and thrilled. However, it had taken until 5PM to reach me, and he decided to delay it a day. Still exciting!

Nadine said she felt cold, and her body started to feel warm to me; she lay limply on the living room couch after dinner. She had an unpleasantly hazy look. I took her temperature and it read over 101; later it read almost 103 degrees. The on-call doctor, Dr. Koronas, said I needed to bring her into the emergency room. Ugh. I felt terrible, and she felt terrible of course. What a nasty surpris.

It was after 8PM, and I called Ronald MacDonald House to request a room, realizing it would be a late night. I didn't get through, panicking me. I arrived at the emergency room to find the parking lot full, plunked the car right outside, and rushed her in past the adult section to Pediatrics. They were expecting her, and placed us in a separate room. A doctor appeared, and a nurse drew her blood; she would have to wait for results (CBC and blood culture were done). I dashed out to park the car, checked my phone messages and found out we had a room at MacDonald House for the night. Whew. The blood test took hours -- we waited in the ER room, with Nadine lying on the bed; eventually I asked to lie down and was given the other bed in the room. Finally,the bloodwork came back -- her counts were okay and they didn't find bacteria in her blood. We were let out. I drove, exhausted, to MacDonald House room G4, where we flopped down on our two pretty quilt-bedspreaded beds.

I got my traditional cookie before bed. Funny, I haven't craved cookies in other places, but at MacDonald House the cookie jar holds comfort for me.

On Tuesday morning I let Nadine rest and rest and rest. I went out to the kitchen. Sharon was there and said "Welcome home". I made ginger tea for Nadine and played Bach on the piano. The house manager told me that my daily fee for staying there would be to play more music. I had another cookie.

I'd hoped Nadine to get up on her own, but At 11:30, I finally rousted her. I was sorry I hadn't done it earlier -- we slogged to the clinic around noon for Nadine's transfusion. The nurse worried that we were too late to give her her two units of blood, but the job was successfully done within about 3 hours, not bad. She was still pretty tired, and rested through most of it.

Raymi called -- he was driving up that day, and expected to arrive by 9:30 or 10PM! I figured we'd have a nice peaceful evening, with Nadine "on the mend".

We returned to MacDonald Houwe, where I stripped the beds (as per orders) and checked out of MacDonald House, getting to sample some food first. We arrived at the Klassen household amidst merriment.

All seemed well, but soon Nadine started to feel bad again. She retired downstairs to rest up, in the middle of dinner. She looked really wretched, and I went out to get a better thermometer.

I felt depressed, as bad as I'd been during our experience. At one time, I spoke with (on the phone) a close friend who had been present at Nadine's birth, and she urged me to share what was going on. It was a tearful time, with sadness and anger welling up in me., We also reminisced about our days together when Erek, Raymi and Nadine were all little. She told me to stay in touch and urged me to call her if I felt awful as well as when I was happy. I was grateful.

I arrived home, and Nadine walked up the stairs -- it was hard for her and she started coughing. She said it was phlegm getting stuck in her throat, but who knew? She was coughing so hard she couldn't even hold the thermometer in her mouth. It went on and on. The doctor suggested some ways to get it out -- nothing worked. She looked dazed and really awful. Finally I got her temperature -- it read around 103 or 104.

My son Raymi, arriving from Pittsburgh and looking cheery in his tie-dye shirt, bounded in while I was on the phone with the doctor. What an arrival for my oldest son -- I'd looked forward to a joyful reunion.

Nadine was looking incredibly wretched, she was coughing hard, and she had a temperature. We all tried to help her cough up the junk, but nothing worked, and Nadine was hurting. She had trouble with feeling cold, even though the room was warm and she had multiple blankets on.

I called the docto, who could hear Nadine's cough over the telephone. She insisted Nadine had to go back to the emergency room and get a chest X-ray to make sure, among other things, that it wasn't pneumonia and that her blood counts hadn't plummeted.

I rebelled, wild with frustration, anger, grief, and exhaustion. She'd been to the ER the last night; I didn't want her subjected to the exhaustion, and to more radiation for the diagnostics. I also was upset about the family reunion being like this. I was so tired that I asked Raymi, who at least was alert, if he'd be willing to bring her to the ER if she had to go, and he immediately agreed to go if needed. I called back the doctor to make sure it was necessary == she insisted it was imperative to rule out pneumonia, (she was obviously right), she said she'd heard Nadine's cough over the phone, and she told me to get some rest. She sounded understandably exasperated -- it was late.

Nadine was so weak that Raymi had to carry her up the stairs. They went off to the ER, and amazingly I got to bed and rested up. I sort of heard them come home around 5AM. There was no pneumonia, but that was the only way to know.

The next day, Wednesday July 14th, I still felt tired and sour, and Nadine was exhausted and still feeling miserable. Eventually Raymi got up and we drove around to find him a 4 1/2-mile run course; we found one, and he took his morning run. He was wilted afterwards from "running tired". Then he and I played a game together -- Raymi won as usual, but it cheered me up some. NAdine lay around most of the first part of the day. I couldn't tell if she was sick or simply exhausted from the previous night.

While Nadine was on the couch, she wanted me to play some music for her. I started on Bach and she asked me to improvise instead. I thought of her and started to create a new piece; later on I did a simple repeated pattern on the piano and she seemed to really like it. I was honored to be able to use this for her. She apologized for being so "picky" about what kind of music I did, but I was happy she could tell me what she wanted.

At some point later, Nadine started to sweat, an excellent sign associated with fever going away. She said she was feeling warm in stead of the previous cold feeling -- it looked like she was finally losing a fever.

Nadine started to feel better. She was more animated, and she looked nicer. Se had a pleasant meal, and I enjoyed watching Nadine across the table. It was fun having Raymi there -- he fit right into the merriment and conversation. I went out to get my favorite Vitamin C tablets. After that, I went to bed.

The misery finally seemed to be over.

It was like a rainbow had arrived, drenching us with beautiful light.